The 22-year-old rolled his ankle in training on Monday, Artell revealed, and failed a late fitness test before Tuesday evening's match at Gresty Road.

Artell revealed that the choice to replace Ng was down to either Hunt or Michael Raynes.

However, the latter played on Monday for more than a hour for Crewe's under-23 side against Burnley - a match which Harry Pickering also played in - and Artell felt it would not have been fair to play the 30-year-old, so they went for Hunt instead.

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Artell said: "We didn’t know Perry was going to be injured. That was the truth. He rolled his ankle yesterday, he carried on training.

"I got a message in the afternoon saying Perry’s saying he’s struggling. He’ll have a fitness test at half four and I’m thinking Perry’s a tough old cookie, it’ll just be a formality.

"We get here at half four, 20 to five and he’s already failed the fitness test. Kenny had a hour’s chat, a long chat, we spoke to a couple of the players. Michael Raynes is unfortunate, it we thought Perry was going to be injured, he wouldn’t have played in the under 23s yesterday.

"As it turned out, he played 63 minutes. The football gods didn’t smile on Michael Raynes, which is unfortunate, but that door closed for Michael and we couldn’t play him, it would have been unfair to ask him to play, especially in quite a high tempo game, far higher than Saturday that’s for sure.

"We spoke to Michael and we spoke to Nicky and I asked him how often has he played at centre half and he said half a season at Leyton Orient and probably 15 other times during his career. I asked him if he could do a job."

Artell said the management had thought about putting Liverpool loanee Corey Whelan or midfielder Ryan Wintle at centre-half, but decided to go for Hunt so as not to have a knock-on impact in other areas of the pitch.

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And it was a decision Artell felt vindicated by as the veteran showed his quality against Phil Brown's Robins, with the Crewe Alex boss pointing to his experience and tactical nous acquired throughout his career.

"We plumped with Nicky and like I said to him when I walked on the pitch, you should play there more often! He was terrific," said Artell.

"That’s what experience gets you, that’s what tactical nous gets you, that’s what know how gets you. He’s just always in the right place and he looked like he’s played there for 35 years."